Noble Heart: A Self-Guided Retreat on Befriending Your Obstacles

You can't get away from suffering. That's the good news, teaches Pema Chodron. For at the core of your most painful experiences, you will find the seeds of your awakening. On Noble Heart, this best-selling author and Tibetan Buddhist nun shows you how vulnerability is our greatest spiritual resource amid life's difficulties. Using special meditations and teachings, she shows how to cultivate your own noble heart, one that sheds its armor, and opens fearlessly to both heartache and delight.

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Publisher's Summary

You can't get away from suffering. That's the good news, teaches Pema Chodron. For at the core of your most painful experiences (perhaps more than anywhere else) you will find the seeds of your awakening. On Noble Heart, this best-selling author and Tibetan Buddhist nun shows you how vulnerability is our greatest spiritual resource amid life's difficulties. Using special meditations and teachings, she shows how to cultivate your own noble heart, one that sheds its armor, and opens fearlessly to both heartache and delight.

This is a full 12-session curriculum of meditations, practices, teaching stories, and real-life examples presented in clear, easy-to-follow language.

This is very much meant to be listened to as if you were on retreat. You won't get quite as much out of it if you listen to it in the car on the way to work or at the gym. (although closing your eyes while driving might be one way to get closer to the divine :-) In my case I spent an hour or so each day sitting on the beach listening to it over a week. Meditations ARE part of it, and while it might feel a little weird sitting in silence listening to your ipod, it's really no different than sitting with a group of people. Participating in the meditations really does add to the overall experience. There's four or five meditations that last for about 15 minutes... so they're short.

Pema, as always, is extremely insightful. The teachings are excellent and you feel as if you're part of a retreat group. If you had the time to yourself, you could easily make a personal, 2-day retreat out of it.

I would highly recommend this. However, if you've never really meditated before and are just getting into it, there are better books out there for getting your feet wet. Meditation For Beginners by Jack Kornfield is excellent as is Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Suriya Das. I think Pema also has an intro to meditation book, but I haven't heard it. But I love everything she's done so it's probably great too.

This is one of the most beautiful program. Just listening to her voice helps center me. After giving an overview of what keeps us from being happy, each track is clearly focusing on one of the 4 techniques of meditations. The only thing I wish is that I could find where the meditations are. I had to write down where exactly they are in order to go directly to them after listening to the program. Awesome program otherwise.

Pema Chodron is a great interpreter and communicator of Buddhist philosophies in the modern world context. Her books are well worth reading. This talk is every bit as good as her books. Its recorded as she talks to an audience and yes there are occasional coughs which can be annoying but it this does not dilute the strength of her delivery or message. As I live on the other side of the world there's no way I could attend her talks so this is the next best thing. I think its good value.

I found this audio book was best listened to at home when I had the time to participate in the meditations. I would recommend it to people who are starting out in Buddhism and who would like to set up a regular meditation and study session at home, or for those who have restricted access to a Buddhist community.

Pema Chodron is the most wonderful speaker. She has a lovely lilting, relaxing voice and what she says is well worth listening to. These sessions, recorded at a retreat, will give the listener lots of common sense, practical advice that they can really use to make their busy lives more spiritual. Highly recommended!

Noble Heart literally saved my life and sanity years ago when I had to have back surgery for a crippling condition. I had been involved in yoga and meditation practices for years when I found myself debilitated for several months. I listened to this series over and over again and it changed my outlook on where I was and what I was going through. I was happy to be able to get it in a digital format recently during a very stressful time. Broken into chapters that give teachings and meditations it is easy to listen to and digest in bite size pieces. It was recorded during a retreat and gives the ambiance and feeling of being on that retreat. Pema Chodron is a wonderful teacher and meditation guide.

Yes, I am already going back to it over and over. It is an excellent resource, with discussion that then leads into guided meditation. The meditations begin off very simple and short with more guidance, but later there is less guidance, only at the beginning. I travel a lot, and I found it useful on the planes, but in the various hotels, helping improve who I want to be, as well as helping me relax.

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